MoviePass Teams With Studio Movie Grill to Link Ticket, Food Purchases in App

Alliance will test an Open Tab feature, allowing subscribers to pay for their ticket, meal and drinks without ever needing to pull out a credit card

MoviePass Studio Movie Grill partnership
MoviePass

Studio Movie Grill announced Monday it has formed a strategic partnership with MoviePass, the nation’s largest theatrical subscription service.

Studio Movie Grill — a 16-year-old company that operates 25 first-run movie theaters with full-service, in-theater dining — is the first exhibitor to make an equity investment in the service. Financial terms were not disclosed.

MoviePass is a movie-theater subscription service, offering film enthusiasts the ability to watch unlimited movies for a monthly fee. It is accepted at more than 98 percent of movie theaters in the United States.

The two companies will experiment with new concepts in subscription and dine-in cinema. For instance, they will be testing an Open Tab feature, allowing subscribers to pay for their ticket, meal and drinks in the MoviePass app without ever needing to pull out a credit card. The tab will automatically close when consumers leave the theater.

The Explore More feature will offer an extensive American Grill menu, a premium bar and the latest projection and sound. According to the Mather Report, MoviePass drives a 111 percent increase in movie theater attendance, and its partnership with Studio Movie Grill will allow a bigger increase in movie-theater attendance if they can cater to a guest’s viewing habits.

“This partnership is designed to accelerate the benefits of the MoviePass subscription model for exhibitors like SMG and its guests,” Stacy Spikes, Co-Founder of MoviePass, said in a statement.

Added Brian Schultz, founder/CEO of Studio Movie Grill, “Studio Movie Grill’s mission is to open hearts and minds, one story at a time. To that end, we continue to explore and invest in ways to promote and enable more guests to enjoy film going as often as possible.  Creating an economical way to offer a subscription model seems like a great path to continue to pioneer the future of movie going.”

For the record: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story incorrectly stated how long Studio Movie Grill has been in business.

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